No going back: Preparing for the hybrid future of work
Employees and employers who are at odds over return-to-office mandates must compromise to realise a new, optimal paradigm of work
The workplace has undergone a dramatic change since COVID-19 forced millions into remote work almost overnight. But what began as a necessity has evolved into a lasting preference, with hybrid and flexible work models likely to shape the future of how we work, according to a leading information systems researcher.
Technology enabled the global response to pandemic restrictions that kept economies alive, with collaborative technological tools allowing many to continue their work from home. That wouldn’t have been possible a few decades ago, noted Manju Ahuja, Scientia Professor at the School of Information Systems and Technology Management at UNSW Business School, who warned that this technological evolution will be difficult to undo as employees have come to expect more flexibility and autonomy.
With more companies implementing return-to-office (RTO) mandates and other means of luring employees back to the physical workplace, it’s a tension that will likely result in compromise on work models rather than a return to the status quo, according to Prof. Ahuja. About 13% of people worked remotely before the pandemic, rising to 37% when the most severe restrictions were in place.
“Now, COVID is no longer the factor it was, but that’s where the number has stayed,” she told BusinessThink. “I think that is going to continue, and we’re going to see a whole continuum of work models, from full-time office all the way to full-time remote.”
A new war for talent
Prof. Ahuja, a Fellow of the Association of Information Systems who has served as Senior Editor at top academic journals and holds a Lifelong Service Award from the Academy of Management, joined UNSW Business School in 2024 and was recently awarded the title of Scientia Professor. She predicts a broad spectrum of work arrangements will emerge, with the bulk of work happening in a hybrid style rather than all-office or all-remote.
Companies are already implementing these changes in various ways, including having fixed in-office days or frequencies, with some offering complete flexibility. Meanwhile, this ‘great reshuffling of talent’ has had a significant impact on labour markets, with rising numbers of remote job postings on offer and attracting far more applications than those requiring a physical office presence.
“We’re seeing this even more with Gen Z; they just do not want to go back. They’ve grown up with this lifestyle, and it’s what they want to stay with,” Prof. Ahuja said. “If we want those talents, we’re going to have to provide at least some remote work.”
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Hybrid and other new work models are linked to flexibility, efficiency and innovation, with little effect on productivity. Nonetheless, as pandemic restrictions fade further into the past, some organisations, including Amazon and other large tech companies, have begun pushing for a return to office.
What, then, is driving the dissonance between the apparent benefits of flexibility and the growing RTO push? According to Prof. Ahuja, while the upsides of flexibility may be real, it remains a challenge for managers, who are thus still incentivised to have employees in the office. “My sense is that it’s very hard to manage remote workers; you can’t manage what you don’t see,” she said.
“It’s an uneasy position for managers not to know who’s working, when, whether the work’s getting done, what the processes are, if people are being good citizens, and so on. I think that’s part of the incentive for managers – they want to manage people more effectively, and being unable to monitor is a big issue. My point is: people don’t want to come back to work, companies want them to come back, and there’s that tension,” she added. “That’s why I think we’re going to find some happy medium for people and managers both.”
Growing tensions
Some companies are offering better access to promotions and pay to incentivise returning to the office, as research has shown remote workers get fewer promotion opportunities and are paid less. The tensions around location, though, are also leading to other innovative compensation models. For example, Salesforce has recently invested in skill- and experience-based compensation models, and other companies have made their pay structures location-agnostic.
Prof. Ahuja, who joined UNSW after a decades-long academic career in the US, has also observed models there combining local rates with skill-based metrics. “If you’re going to move to Georgia, your pay will not be the same as when you were living in California,” she said, describing such models. “That’s one of the things they’re using to lure people back – location becomes an issue in determining what pay structure should be.”
However, organisations should also consider the negative implications of a move away from workplace flexibility. For instance, RTO mandates raise potentially significant diversity and gender equity issues. “More women quit during COVID, and I think that if we’re asking people to come back, that will happen again,” Prof. Ahuja said, citing a study showing that 63% of C-suite leaders said women were quitting due to RTO mandates.
“Not that it doesn’t happen to men – it does, of course – it just forces women to a greater extent to choose between career growth and personal responsibilities. That has already happened and will likely continue to happen as people go back.”
Other benefits from the trend towards remote work included a narrowing of gender pay gaps and improved career progression, and a perception that “old boys’ networks” are less influential. Moreover, people with disabilities, especially those with neurodiversity, benefit from greater flexibility and remote work. “We’ve seen better wellbeing for all these categories, as well as better productivity. It’s supporting autonomy and reducing discrimination risks,” Prof. Ahuja said. “As companies are telling people to come back, these are some of the things they should think about and provide support for in their policies and strategies.”
Key skills for a hybrid world
If hybrid working is to become the norm, there are key skills and competencies that organisations and the people they hire should prioritise, according to Prof. Ahuja. First among these is attention management. “When you’re at home, there are interruptions; that’s just human nature,” she said. “It’s very difficult to manage focus, and time management is a big part of it.”
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Cognitive skills are also valuable in a hybrid working environment. “It’s much harder to analyse and solve complex problems in a hybrid setup, mainly because the work conditions are not clear,” Prof. Ahuja said. “Sometimes people aren’t reachable; it’s very different from being together in person. Cognitive skills of communication, mental flexibility, planning, ways of working and critical thinking will all be extremely important.”
Other key competencies include digital skills enabling employees to deal with technology and the problems they’ll encounter with it, as well as the “self-management that goes hand-in-hand with time management – being aware of where your day is going and what your goals are”, she said.
Prof. Ahuja, who has also researched couples dynamics in work-from-home settings, including in her paper Advancing research on women’s equality in virtual work, noted that there can be issues with office space when both partners are working from home, again making self-management skills essential for managing home and work dynamics.
“Finally, it’s developing relationships at work: interpersonal skills must be more mindful and deliberate, including getting to know new people and getting new people socialised,” she said. “That’s a skill we have to work on, but companies must also provide some support for that and be mindful that when this kind of teamwork happens, teams are effective.”
Building such teamwork effectiveness is a challenge in virtual environments, which lack vital face-to-face time, something Prof. Ahuja looked at in a 2014 research paper, The role of communication and trust in global virtual teams: A social network perspective. “It’s not that you can’t do team meetings without communication technologies, but it’s a lot harder, and we have shown that it’s harder to build trust, to arrive at consensus, to solve problems, to be creative,” she said.
How employers can adapt and support
To foster innovation and creativity among geographically dispersed teams, organisations can invest in helping people manage their time and focus, Prof. Ahuja said. That includes knowing how many virtual teams people can reasonably contribute to without affecting their creativity or focus.
Providing sufficient training and support will be important. “If people are struggling with technology, structures, paperwork, etc, they’ll be less creative and less innovative,” she said.
She also pointed to the growing prevalence of right-to-disconnect policies and regulations as addressing this tension. In a 2021 book, Navigating Work and Life Boundaries, Prof. Ahuja and her co-authors found constant connectedness causes feelings of helplessness in employees. “If we don’t disconnect, we can never be creative, and we get bogged down by constant connectivity, which is very stressful on the mind. It takes away the cognitive resources you need to be innovative and creative.”
Ensuring the availability of collaborative technologies is essential, as are continuous reskilling and internal talent management. Organisations should also have a strategic focus on innovation as opposed to how efficient someone is. That can extend to monitoring, making things more outcome- rather than process-based and including that in performance metrics.
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“Some companies are providing housing subsidies, caregiving support, financial wellness programs, student loan repayment, support for transportation or to live close by, and so on,” Prof. Ahuja said. “These will become important in attracting people back. Remember that, in the end, people will come back because of community,” she continued, noting that the world is still recovering from a pandemic and the isolation and loss of community it caused.
“Work is more than just getting things done; it’s more than just tasks. It’s also about friendships, community, and a sense of belonging and identity,” she said. “If we want people to come back, that’s what will bring them back.”